A Suitable Boy

Rating:
Summary: A helluva read. I loved every one of the 1,400 pages.
Review: I was totally engaged in "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. I look back on it as a personal wide-screen cinema. His detailed description painted vivid, exotic pictures. His subtle desciptions of the relationships within and between families gave me a personal connection with India I never would would have as a visitor. I wish he added a glossary, so I knew what they were eating and drinking. And, even though I am in the business, I don't know about co-respondent shoes, although I am in the leather business. His observations of an Indian tannery were technically absolutely correct. It takes a while to get ino it -- Seth isn't in a hurry, but once in, there is nothing to do but to read late, or to get up very early, as I did, A helluva read.

Rating:
Summary: "A Suitable Boy" takes us on a river of life in India.
Review: Many years ago a movie entitled "The River" carried the viewer along the river of life in India. Now the novel, "A Suitable Boy," does the same for the reader. From the opening problem of "how does a mother manage to get her independent second daughter married to a proper Hindu man when other possibilities intrude?," this book presents a rich and dynamic picture of the tensions and conflicts of the time. Some of the characters are winning, some are less than winning, some are poignant. Whichever they are, we care. Set in the period shortly after the partition, "A Suitable Boy" brings us into the heart and the heat of the social and political upheavals of the period and spans the society from untouchables to Brahmins, radical Moslems to ultra-traditional Hindus. It is a rich tapestry. "A Suitable Boy" covers only a brief period of time but when we finally come to the end (the book does have about 1,400 pages) we feel we have travelled a wonderful river of life in India

Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully good story.
Review: I throughly enjoyed Seth's A Suitable Boy. He follows the story of Lata, a young Indian woman whose mother feels is now ready to marry. What Lata will have to face is whether she will marry for love or marry the man chosen by her family. Seth combines romance with the history, politics and religion of India to make a very enjoyable glimplse of life for this young woman and the people around her. While Lata is the focus of the story, he has several side stories that help to give a better picture of their life in India and of the complexity of the decision that Lata faces. I found it very difficult to put this book down at times and once missed my train stop because of it. I highly recommend to those who would like to learn about India and enjoy a good story in the process.

Rating:
Summary: This is what a novel is supposed to be
Review: So many novels these days contain one dimensional preachy characters speaking unbelievable dialogue.
Seth manages to create an entire cast of characters that without exception sustained my interest throughout the course of this very long novel. He is just great at writng dialogue.
I can't find enough good things to say about it.
Note: I do not recommend An Equal Music. I can't believe that it was written by the same author.

Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Masterpiece
Review: When I told my mother I was reading Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, the first thing she said was "Vikram Seth? Isn't he that pretentious guy who wrote a whole novel in iambic pentameter?" Although my mother was slightly mistaken - The Golden Gate was actually written in tetrameter - she has a point about Seth's pretentiousness.

I suppose it takes a man of no small pretentions to write, and beyond that actually get printed, what is purportedly the longest novel ever published in the English language. Not only do you have to overcome the dependable aversion of publishers to anything longer than a novella, but you also have to convince yourself that people are actually going to like your work enough to suffer through it for 1500 pages. Somehow, I doubt that Seth worried to much about that. And to think, they say he cut another 600 pages!

I further suppose that it would be difficult to write so long a novel without leaving large chunks of yourself littered across its wordscapes. Seth certainly does so. In a strange way, after reading this book, I feel I know Mr. Seth personally. His knowledge of India is as vast as the Ganga, his settings are vivid, and his characters are remarkably alive but it is his sense of his own genius that is most palpable of all. In everything from his incessant wordplay, his clear disdain for Tagore, his ventriloquistic analysis of his own ventriloquized poetry, his constant literary name-dropping, and even his use of the most overpowering authorial voice -- third person full omniscient -- Seth himself dominates his novel like a Lord from on high. And why exactly was the table of contents a series of rhymed iambic couplets? Just couldn't help himself, I can only surmise. As riveting as this book was, Seth never let me forget for longer than a chapter or so that I was reading a novel, because somehow he would intrude himself into the fabric of the world he has created. It is a tribute to the magic of the book that I regretted these jolting intrusions as keenly as I did.

If Seth indeed has an inflated sense of his talent, his is not far wrong in his self-assessment. Seth is some kind of genius. A Suitable Boy is brilliant. I couldn't put it down. It made me think about life, the universe, and everything. More than once. It made me want to run out write more poetry and read more books and dream up more fiction. But in the end the work is flawed, marred, if ever so slightly, by Seth's reflexive showmanship instinct, his flailing flair for flash.

And slightly more so by Seth's descent into his novel like a latter-day avatar of Vishnu. One of the characters is undeniably Seth's personal analogue. His history mirrors Seth's, his dialogue is the most direct and least forced, his awkwardnesses are uncomfortably real, and his inner thoughts are the most deeply shrouded of any character. We as readers feel Seth lurking much more closely behind that mask than any of the others. Which character Seth ultimately gives his dream girl away to matters not. We the readers somehow know who the Suitable Boy should have been at the end, even though by rights we shouldn't be so sure. This tainted masterwork deserved a more ambiguous ending.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Indian saga
Review: This lengthy and fascinating novel is set in post-Independence India. Lata is a young university student with a passion for Jane Austen and P.G. Wodehouse. Her mother, who has succesfully married off her two older children, is anxious to find a 'suitable boy' for Lata.

Unfortunately, Lata has fallen for a most unsuitable boy, a fellow student. He is handsome, charming, intelligent - and a Muslim. Lata is courted by two other young men, a handsome dilletante who writes poetry, and an ambitious shoemaker who wants to get on in the world.

This novel has several different sets of characters whose stories are interwoven and overlap, but it is Lata and her delightful family who made the most vivivd impression on me. My favourite character is Lata's mother, warmhearted, eager and ambitious for her children, she is utterly charming.

This story is full of fascinating characters and gripping stories which unfold against a vividly realised Indian background. I don't normally enjoy reading very, very long novels, but I couldn't put this one down.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed every minute
Review: The book was un-put-down-able if ever there was such an adjective.It took me totally to a different world where I felt like I was Lata and going through all of her emotions. Even after the book was over it took me a couple of days to realize that Lata had finally made her choice and come out of the web created by Seth.

Rating:
Summary: I would have given it five stars, but...
Review: The only complaint I have about this book was Seth's frequent use of incorrect pronoun case, particualrly in the comparative (i.e., "older than me"); that's something that just grates on my nerves and (at least temporarily) spoils my enjoyment of his writing. I constantly find that sort of thing in translations, for some reason, but I presume that Seth wrote this book in English, so I'm at a loss as to why he would commit such blatant errors. I've read a few of his other books, namely "From Heaven Lake" and "The Golden Gate", both of which I loved; however, it's been many years since I read them and I honestly don't remember if he made such errors in those books. As a matter of fact, it's been about 10 years since I read "A Suitable Boy", so obviously the grammatical errors were enough to create a lasting impression on me. Apart from that, I think it's a wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: 20th Century Masterpiece
Review: Naming your favorite novel of all time must be approached with much caution, but I have to say that, after reading this gargantuan novel 15 years ago, no work of fiction has stayed dearer to my heart. A SUITABLE BOY is my favorite. Logging in at over 150 reader reviews, this book has obviously had enough said about it in these pages without me going into detail, but if you've ever read WAR AND PEACE then you know what it will be like to heave an epic like this onto your lap and lose yourself in a long, LONG reading experience that, like me, you will never forget.

Rating:
Summary: A fun read; a lovely book
Review: No, he is not Tolstoy. Or Proust, of whom he likes to make fun. His style is amiable, unpretentious and amusing. He reminds me, most of all, of TROLLOPE, particularly the Trollope of the Parliamentary [Palliser] novels. He might not be a profound observer of the human condition, or an Olympian of the English language, but his writing has charm and point. And he sure deploys a large canvas!

His protagonists are a very irresponsible but lovable 25-year-old boy and a much TOO sensible 20-year old girl, and the other characters run the gamut from broad Trollopian rajas and intoxicatingly devious manipulators to saints out of Louisa May Alcott and feral parodies à la Sophie Portnoy. As I said, this book covers a lot of ground-as huge as India itself-yet centered on domestic, provincial concerns, as Indian life itself is. The story never loses focus.

I read it entirely in doctors' waiting rooms, as my father got hour upon hour of chemotherapy; it took me into a different world, and held me there without fail. Maybe that's a little too rosy, but I sure needed it. I don't think Kafka would have been as helpful.

Maybe I'll re-read Barchester Towers next.